50 Seconds
by chaotic-addict
Summary: 50 breaths missed, 50 things left unsaid, 50 moments that are easy to miss in the rush of life. Jade and Anise, take it whatever way you want. Spoilers.


**A/N:** _ Take these in whatever way you want. I did not write these with the intention of a couple, a friendship, or anything. I simply wrote what came into my head, so do not jump to conclusions, please._

An unofficial challenge I took, since I needed to, well, challenge myself. Cranked these out in five hours.

Enjoy!

**50 Seconds**

_Things the game didn't show us in detail_

**.1. Motion**

He ambles at the back of the party and she leads them, skipping and twirling and singing, grinning just as hard as the doll bouncing on her back, but when battle begins, Jade is gliding past them all, spear gleaming wickedly in his hand, and she wonders how he does it.

**.2. Cool**

Anise naps on him in the Albiore's cabin when she thinks he's asleep, and she is always surprised at how cold to the touch he really is, as if ice does run through his veins.

**.3. Young**

If their sprint up the Tower of Rem didn't prove it, nothing would: Jade was the youngest of them all, and anything else he stated to disprove it was complete and utter bullshit.

**.4. Last**

Anise would never tell anyone, but she wanted the night before Eldrant to never end; the Jade sitting next to her staring into his drink was a different Jade than any one the group had known, and she wanted to keep it close, a secret from everyone.

**.5. Wrong**

"I'm not wrong," he said simply, adjusting his glasses and deflecting her hands-on-hips-and-puffed-cheeks irritation with his infamous smile, "you're simply grossly misinformed."

**.6. Gentle**

She dimly registered his arms lifting her through the poisonous haze coursing through her body, and never thought he could be so gentle…until he slung her over his shoulder and she unwillingly threw up onto the grass.

**.7. One**

It came to Anise in an epiphany that made her sit up sharply, as if she'd been shocked; that one little boy in the man that sat next to her really could change the entire world, warping it for better and worse.

**.8. Thousand**

He watched her wipe her red, puffy eyes and clutch the fonstone from Mt. Zaleho tightly, and was reminded again that no matter how many positive deeds he did and number people he saved, he would never let it clean the blood from his hands.

**.9. King**

When Peony cheerfully informed them he had yet to name a successor, Anise couldn't help but entertain the thought of _Emperor Jade Curtiss of Malkuth_, then let out a giggle…and a shudder.

**.10. Learn**

Luke would never learn, Anise thought as she watched Jade solve the replica's "cold" problem by lighting the tails of his gaudy jacket ablaze.

**.11. Blur**

Jade watched the Puppeteer squash a liger that had sprang for him mid-cast, and idly wondered to himself how Tokunaga's stub legs moved so _quickly_.

**.12. Wait**

As Anise stood in the belly of the volcano, her heart numb, she found every nerve of her body was taut, expecting a clipped voice, accompanied by its owner who would save Ion from his cruel fate.

**.13. Change**

He'd let a chuckle escape his lips when she declared her plans for reforming the Order, but it wasn't cruel, so she let it slide; Jade was, in fact, imagining her swimming in a Fon Master's robe.

**.14. Command**

Once in a while Jade wished that the other members of the party would make up their own minds instead of always seeking his advice; he was secretly grateful for Anise voicing what he would not.

**.15. Hold**

"Colonel, hold this for a minute," Anise instructs as she squints, tongue sticking out, at the recipe for the night's dinner, not noticing Jade slyly switching the pepper with Chesedonia's Crazy Cajun Seasoning.

**.16. Need**

What she needed, Jade thought cruelly, was a father, not a man who constantly dug his family further and further into poverty, so absorbed with the Order he loved that he could not teach his daughter proper morals or see that she had been silently screaming for his help, trapped under Mohs' thumb.

**.17. Vision**

An innocent enough question, but Jade inwardly shifted with discomfort, unwilling to inform her, as he'd informed no one, that he hadn't gone for a Score reading ever since he discovered he should have died with the Professor.

**.18. Attention**

After the first year of traveling with him, Anise began to notice the little things that defined him, like how his stance was never relaxed as everyone else's were: If his hands were not tucked into his pockets or behind his back, then they stayed at his side as he stood tall and proud at attention, simply through habit.

**.19. Soul**

Anise had never been a big believer in placing trust into something that hadn't proven its worth, whether it was people or something intangible, but every time someone took a violent stab at Jade, she swallowed down the lump in her throat, the small voice that wanted to speak up and say Jade wasn't as heartless or mean as everyone thought.

**.20. Picture**

Anise would have asked Jade about the picture in Nephry's office, but after seeing how his eyes lingered on it a fraction of a second more than it should have, she turned her open mouth into a yawn instead, lingering to look at the group of four children gathered around a smiling, beautiful woman.

**.21. Fool**

They were so similar in many respects, but the one that stood out to both of them was how they both cavorted and smiled and functioned as the jesters of the group, performing ridiculous acrobatics of the mind and participating in witty, flirtatious banter: If they weren't lighthearted, the entire group would fall, so playing the fool was really the most important job of all.

**.22. Mad**

What Anise found the most frightening about the Colonel's outburst wasn't the way his voice grated, scraping his throat as the threat had escaped unwillingly, nor was it how his eyes could have very well split Deo Pass in half if he'd wanted to; it was how three seconds later, he straightened, pushing up his glasses and smiling effortlessly.

**.23. Child**

He let her pass as she bolted from the Tatlins' room, face scrunched into a wounded determination brought by Arietta's whiplash words, briefly skimmed the dark desires that lingered in the back of his mind, and wondered which of them was truly the child.

**.24. Now**

She doesn't know what will happen since Ion is gone, but for the moment all she wants to do is meet his piercing crimson gaze without feeling a deep, sorrowful shame.

**.25. Shadow**

As they walk, she secretly plays a game with his shadow when she gets bored, using hers to make creatures to eat him or transform him; she is dismayed when he falls behind and steps on her shadow's head, smiling innocently and claiming victory; she didn't think he had noticed.

**.26. Goodbye**

She didn't know how to say farewell, not after Eldrant; "Good luck" just fell so short, so when he used it, shook her hand formally, and turned to leave, something bubbled up in her stomach, feeling angry and downright cheated.

**.27. Hide**

Anise wishes she hadn't hidden behind her excuses and lies; she secretly admires the way the Colonel lives, facing the consequences of his actions without making it a big fuss, but it's not like she would ever tell _him_ that, so she continues to shield herself behind deception.

**.28. Fortune**

"Col-onel," she sang, squirming her way next to him and fluttering her eyelashes in a way that made her look more challenged than attractive, "you did say you have a _manor_, didn't you?" Jade simply laughed, waving her along, informing her he didn't have "the time nor resources to adopt and care for a child," to which she "_boooooo_"ed and pouted, muttering darkly about being a blossoming young flower.

**.29. Safe**

Although he wasn't exactly the most secure person to be around, everyone looked to him; Anise thought they were crazy. There was something in him that was dangerous and vicious, that functioned on instinct and had the soldier's mindset of kill or be killed; great to have on your side, but terrifying to witness, let alone face.

**.30. Ghost**

Jade wondered if he was the only one who saw Anise's eyes when she looked hard at Florian; he knew she was trying so hard to see past the ghost of Ion, but for the moment, was failing and sending herself into a deeper despair.

**.31. Book**

Anise hadn't known that he had written _books_, let alone that _Commandant Grants_ had read them; she gave up three sentences in, incomprehension coupled with the fact that Jade had caught her and would never let her forget it.

**.32. Eye**

His eyes were a shade of red that was made of _angles_; they were so sharp and piercing that it had taken her months before she could fully look him in the eye (she still preferred her own shining brown ones to his).

**.33. Never**

Of all the things that Colonel Jade Curtiss, Third Division, Malkuth Imperial Forces considered unacceptable, the greatest sin of all was uttering something about Dist when it wasn't necessary; Anise thought she should be sorry for Guy, but she could only find it funny how he was afraid to walk within twenty feet of the group for three days.

**.34. Sing**

While Tear was a Hymnist, she never sang outside of battle; that was Anise's job, and Jade found that he preferred her keen, off-key warbling, if for no other reason than it annoyed everyone and sped up their pace.

**.35. Sudden**

Anise was prone to sudden changes of temperament, but what fascinated the group the most was their discovery that Jade was also a victim, in a much more _Jade_ way.

**.36. Stop**

If she allowed herself to slow at all, she would think of Ion, so she pushed herself as far and as hard as she could, until she wanted to collapse: All Jade could do to assist her was to prevent everyone else from encouraging her otherwise.

**.37. Time**

The month after the Absorption Gate _dragged_ along, and as reluctant as Jade was to admit it to himself, he knew it was the absence of a devilish grin, batting eyelashes, and a ridiculous full-body wiggle that caused the world to slow.

**.38. Wash**

Many people wondered how Jade always managed to stay in such pristine condition; the first and last time Anise had sat down and thought it through, she wished she could empty a Holy Bottle directly onto her brain at the _fleeting idea_ of the Colonel being as vain as Dist.

**.39. Torn**

She was by no means a child, not anymore, so she _would not cry_ when Luke had accidentally unraveled Tokunaga's main stitches; she simply asked Jade how to subtly put laxatives in his dinner.

**.40. History**

Jade spoke calmly of his past when the need arose, and when it was all over, Anise felt not pity, but embarrassment; walking into Jade's intimate thoughts was, as much as she had yearned for it before, an experience she never wished to repeat.

**.41. Power**

What scared Anise wasn't what Jade did: It's what he _didn't_ do, the unspoken things that had given him the name Necromancer.

**.42. Bother**

He would never know what possessed her to annoy him so, just as no one could fathom why he had relinquished his glasses for five minutes and allowed Anise to run rampant around the Tartarus' bridge, doing her best impression of the bespectacled Colonel.

**.43. God**

Jade was never one prone to anger, so he did not fall into the same youthful tirades as his companions did; he did, however, find himself _irate_ that the Commandant thought he could play God with a technology that belonged to the Necromancer alone.

**.44. Wall**

Sometimes Anise thought she was privy to some _Jade-things_ no one else knew, then she realized she was the same as everyone else: Pounding helplessly against the outside of the impenetrable walls Jade had built around himself.

**.45. Naked**

Anise was convinced that his uniform hid some secret to his power; _no one_ covered up that much skin unless they lived in Yulia City, so when she discovered that she'd missed on the opportunity to assist her friends in ripping off Jade's clothes, she didn't speak to Tear for a week.

**.46. Drive**

_No one_ was allowed to pilot the Tartarus except Jade; the one time Anise had even ventured within five feet of the controls, she found herself hanging off the edge of the land dreadnaught by the scruff of her uniform for hours, screaming curses at the top of her lungs while Jade smiled sweetly at her and the rest of the Malkuthian soldiers pretended they didn't see anything.

**.47. Harm**

The last Fon Master Guardian knew she had caused more harm than help, but she still craved her friends' forgiveness all the same. Jade couldn't help but think it a cruel, ironic parallel to the redheaded replica she had abandoned after Akzeriuth's collapse.

**.48. Precious**

She never knew that he noticed her cradling Ion's fonstone when she thought no one was looking, and he never told her.

**.49. Hunger**

Anise was absolutely starving, but she _refused_ to eat the chicken placed in front of her; she didn't trust Jade's cooking after he had sabotaged her last meal, and all Jade ever did about it was smile sweetly.

**.50. Believe**

"Faith" and "trust" were dangerous words on their own, let alone when they were _applied_ to things, but at this point, Anise and Jade had no choice, and both found that although the piece fit in rather awkwardly between them, it was by no means misplaced.


End file.
